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Visual Design

I've been thinking about art in games, and how it contributes to a
game's longevity. I suppose these are thoughts that many have
considered at one time or another, I only write this because I'm
caffeinated. The prettiest games in the world aren't necessarily the
ones with the most advanced graphics engines, but the ones that had
solid concept art and 2D and 3D artists skilled enough to make those
images come to life in game form. I can think of two salient examples of
this idea. Halo 1 is still the prettiest of the series in my opinion,
because the design is simple, yet unique. The color pallet is bright and
and saturated. Ever changing, it holds the gamer's interest continually
as the levels change (well, barring the middle part of the game where
you wander through all those ring shaped rooms). Yes, the engine is
outdated, but the design of the characters, environments, and weapons is
so tight that there's little that a new engine can do to improve it.
Additionally, there is something to be said about simpler, low poly, low
res texture rendering. More abstract visuals often leave room for the
imagination to roam. It's the same appeal that speedpaintings have-
which is why sharper, more detailed images are often less interesting.
That is why Halo HD or whatever it is called seems a bit superfluous to
me.

I suddenly realise that the entire pot of coffee I just drank is causing me to ramble a bit, so back to the point.

A
still better example is the venerable PC RTS Homeworld. Released in
1999, this game featured fully 3D battles that caused you to consider
the full XYZ axis. The artists, realising that the black void of space
was actually pretty boring to look at, followed science fiction art
masters like John Berkey and rendered the cosmos full of color: nebulas
filled the gulf of space with ethereal hues, ships left colourful vapor
trails that made their combat maneurvers look more akin to an elegant
dance than to battle. Designs of the spacecraft themselves were often
angular, smooth, and asymmetrical, but always functional and believable.
Today, Homeworld's graphics look simple in technical terms. Nowhere
will you find the shiny bump maps that are almost ubiquitous in today's
games. Instead, there are simple meshes, low resolution textures and
crude lighting. Yet, if Homeworld had been kept in a vault until today,
it would win awards for its visuals, despite the simple engine. Now I
am reminded of The past three Elder Scrolls games. Technologically
speaking, Skyrim doesn't appear to be that impressive. Some games
released four or so years ago have prettier engines. Yet Skyrim is
beautiful. Each house, tree, rock, creek, axe, beast, and character have
hand-crafted beauty. The previous Elder Scrolls game Oblivion relied
too heavily on the flashy tech stuff that DirectX 9 facilitated.
Everything was covered in those shiny bump maps (aren't' they called
specular maps?) that looked neat at first but quickly became visual
sandpaper. Skyrim, like Morrowind will endure because their engines
support their art, not the other way around as in a tech demo. In other
words, they are artistic achievements, not merely technical ones.

By
the way, please don't take this to mean that I think Oblivion was an
artistic failure. In many ways, it is still a gorgeous game, but I feel
that the overzealous use of certain technologies often got in the way of
appreciating the game's solid design.